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snack pack
Sunday, 4 June 2023 18:59articles
- Heléne Yorke Grub Street Diet
- Garth Greenwell on Brandon Taylor
- An Interview with Jenny Fran Davis by Thea McLachlan
- The Shadow of Steffi Graf by Louisa Thomas
- Denis Shapovalov was no match for Carlos Alcaraz at the French Open, but all’s not lost by Rosie DiManno
- NASA’s Year-Long Mars Simulation Is a Test of Mental Mettle by Ramin Skibba
- Naoise Dolan Interview
books
- The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
- The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
- Started: Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis, The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Breaking the Code about Jennifer Doudna
thoughts
I always say I want to be a better critical reader/thinker/whatever even though I don't really know what that means. But I think I've always just breezed through life and categorized things based on if I like them or not, but then I went insane and never felt confident in if I did like something or not, and was never able to explain it, so it was all one big question mark. Reviewing books for N*tGalley helped a bit but it's still so impossibly hard for me to describe or compare books and I feel like I miss so much. Did not really like The Late Americans but then I read reviews and the like, and feel like I am missing something. The Happy Couple was amazing but describing how it's format was different and how clever I found the writing is like...I cannot go further than that. Same with articles and watching sports; I want to be more intentional but I find it so hard. I have a "physics of tennis textbook" I bought years ago and literally never opened and it's like mhm. I kind of hate that so much of my sports fandom has been literally about fandom and not about the actual game play, strategy, technique, etc. Not that there's anything wrong about that, it just takes away from what I personally want from sports now. Fic is just...not going well for me at all and I feel so stupid and I miss having someone who'd read my stuff as I write and now it's like...I know [redacted] means well but it's so different than having someone be critical and I know they're being nice about it? I don't know. Still caring about This Way Up in the year 2023 is like...Jesus Christ. But I definitely pigeon holed myself with them tbh. But anyway, sports. I really miss Matt the Racquet like please come back you were the only person who made it make sense. The commentators are honestly so bad if you don't get like Woz or Robson or Chanda or Darren. They don't really explain anything more than a level I already know and it seems like they do not have a grip on most of the players so it's just reacting to the match, which is mostly fine, but it's always missing a lot of context. There's a few people on Twitter who write threads breaking shit down and some newsletters but they aren't what I specifically want and I know it's insane to be like "poor me" and I'm not but tennis is so like...no analytics which is fine? There's a new twitter who posts "stats" but I find it so simplistic that it doesn't really offer a lot and seems to be so reliant on the outcome of the match instead of a predictor that I don't trust them. It's such a hard sport to like watch and analyze imo because I am like, wow she keeps going to her backhand but it's so hard to see the set up if you aren't familiar with how it works and whatever. I do find playing helps a lot because it just...adds the context and you can imagine the speed and everything that's not comparable to myself on court. It's why I liked on court coaching when they were mic'd (even though I think it's unfair) but it was really cool to hear coaches be like, stop going to her forehand on the serve, if it's a short ball on her forehand she's going to go cross court, if she slices; attack, etc. Players don't really breakdown strategy in press that often and I really, really wish they would. But the questions lately are so focused on off court drama and problems that it's like...well okay. Like Elena keeps saying that her game isn't suited to clay and I can figure out why but I wish she'd break it down. But I get there's so many factors to why she wouldn't want to. Roland Garros has been an absolute mess of a tournament and I feel like...there's people I don't want to win and people that it'd be miserable if they did, but it's mostly fine. It was kind of a shock to realize I care so little about so many people tbh.
- Heléne Yorke Grub Street Diet
- Garth Greenwell on Brandon Taylor
- An Interview with Jenny Fran Davis by Thea McLachlan
- The Shadow of Steffi Graf by Louisa Thomas
- Denis Shapovalov was no match for Carlos Alcaraz at the French Open, but all’s not lost by Rosie DiManno
- NASA’s Year-Long Mars Simulation Is a Test of Mental Mettle by Ramin Skibba
- Naoise Dolan Interview
books
- The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
- The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
- Started: Dykette by Jenny Fran Davis, The Song of the Cell by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Breaking the Code about Jennifer Doudna
thoughts
I always say I want to be a better critical reader/thinker/whatever even though I don't really know what that means. But I think I've always just breezed through life and categorized things based on if I like them or not, but then I went insane and never felt confident in if I did like something or not, and was never able to explain it, so it was all one big question mark. Reviewing books for N*tGalley helped a bit but it's still so impossibly hard for me to describe or compare books and I feel like I miss so much. Did not really like The Late Americans but then I read reviews and the like, and feel like I am missing something. The Happy Couple was amazing but describing how it's format was different and how clever I found the writing is like...I cannot go further than that. Same with articles and watching sports; I want to be more intentional but I find it so hard. I have a "physics of tennis textbook" I bought years ago and literally never opened and it's like mhm. I kind of hate that so much of my sports fandom has been literally about fandom and not about the actual game play, strategy, technique, etc. Not that there's anything wrong about that, it just takes away from what I personally want from sports now. Fic is just...not going well for me at all and I feel so stupid and I miss having someone who'd read my stuff as I write and now it's like...I know [redacted] means well but it's so different than having someone be critical and I know they're being nice about it? I don't know. Still caring about This Way Up in the year 2023 is like...Jesus Christ. But I definitely pigeon holed myself with them tbh. But anyway, sports. I really miss Matt the Racquet like please come back you were the only person who made it make sense. The commentators are honestly so bad if you don't get like Woz or Robson or Chanda or Darren. They don't really explain anything more than a level I already know and it seems like they do not have a grip on most of the players so it's just reacting to the match, which is mostly fine, but it's always missing a lot of context. There's a few people on Twitter who write threads breaking shit down and some newsletters but they aren't what I specifically want and I know it's insane to be like "poor me" and I'm not but tennis is so like...no analytics which is fine? There's a new twitter who posts "stats" but I find it so simplistic that it doesn't really offer a lot and seems to be so reliant on the outcome of the match instead of a predictor that I don't trust them. It's such a hard sport to like watch and analyze imo because I am like, wow she keeps going to her backhand but it's so hard to see the set up if you aren't familiar with how it works and whatever. I do find playing helps a lot because it just...adds the context and you can imagine the speed and everything that's not comparable to myself on court. It's why I liked on court coaching when they were mic'd (even though I think it's unfair) but it was really cool to hear coaches be like, stop going to her forehand on the serve, if it's a short ball on her forehand she's going to go cross court, if she slices; attack, etc. Players don't really breakdown strategy in press that often and I really, really wish they would. But the questions lately are so focused on off court drama and problems that it's like...well okay. Like Elena keeps saying that her game isn't suited to clay and I can figure out why but I wish she'd break it down. But I get there's so many factors to why she wouldn't want to. Roland Garros has been an absolute mess of a tournament and I feel like...there's people I don't want to win and people that it'd be miserable if they did, but it's mostly fine. It was kind of a shock to realize I care so little about so many people tbh.
